The Werewolves

Anna and Max were falling down into an increasingly narrow valley between the wall and the up-folded platform.

"I thought we were just supposed to pretend fight! We're gonna die!" Anna screamed.

Max saw something below. He took over the controls and folded up the mech's limbs, diving into the narrowest part. The slam of the plate against the wall was almost deafening to Anna, but she was still alive. Albeit upsidedown, but alive. The screen showed the black liquid portal. It made a quick flash of metallic red before it disappeared, leaving behind only the outer frame.

Anna righted the mech and looked around. They were back in the hangar of an enemy battleship. It looked the same as the one that they had come from, but was it?

"Is there a way to tell where we are?" Anna asked Max.

"There is." An unfamiliar voice answered. A tiny drone, similar to the ones that continuously repaired things in the factory had floated up from behind Anna's seat.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" Anna asked.

"This is a fragment of the Protalife. It is not as wise as the original, but it came with us to help on our end." Max Answered.

"That is correct. You can call me Frag." It responded. "I got in here when you were being held hostage by my original. My original continuously uploaded info up until the point that we went through the portal. I have all details about your world and knowledge on how to combine your world's materials and the materials of this spacecraft to ensure your species has an ARK. In case the enemy's forces return. Bring me to the control deck. I can take control of the craft from there and land it safely on your planet. Ideally near the Rig that you came from."

The mech began walking toward the door that leads outside of the hangar.

"You sure know a lot. Even about the rig." Anna commented.

"Yes, I may be a fragment but I was left with all pertinent data that is required. When Max and my original made conversation before he..." Anna cocked her head to the side. "Well, Max told my original about all of your adventures. Let's leave it at that."

The large servant creatures still inhabited the command center.

"Just shoo them away with hand gestures. They are not loyal to the empire, just whoever is nearby and acts in charge."

Anna shooed away several of the servants. She came up to a large console in the middle of the room. She opened the cockpit and Frag floated out. He went down to the giant console and tapped a few buttons with his whole body. A blast shield began to lower, revealing a large viewing glass. It was focused on Earth.

"We're home," Max said.

"Over here," Frag called out. "Rip out this controller port. I need access."

Anna walked the mech over and stuck the claws from the remaining hand under the semi-exposed edges of a port before ripping it out. Frag went inside and pulled out two wires. He had two tiny grippers, each one holding onto an exposed wire.

"There. I can control the ship like this."

Some of the servants were watching. One took the initiative and started whispering commands to another. Within minutes, the servants had a special mounting port and multiple tools. They brought a ladder over and two climbed up.

"Get them out of here, they are blocking my... Hey! Stop that.!" Frag complained. The servants pushed him away and took hold of the exposed wires. They quickly attached the wires onto the special mounting. Anna tried to move the mech's arm to shoo them away again. Max stopped her.

"Max. What are you doing? Let me-"

"It's alright. They said they just want to make it easier for Frag." Max replied

"They did?" Both Anna and Frag replied.

"I was unaware of their language. My original must have left out non-related languages from my memory stores." Frag commented.

The servants were quick. They had already secured the mount and painted it to match the control panel. One servant grabbed Frag and set him down into the special slot made just for him. Several other servants started making more special modifications to the control room in order to suit Frag and the mech's differences.

It quickly became apparent that the servants were extremely skilled and helpful. They could easily be an asset to the leftover population on Earth.

"Here we go." Frag commented as he took control of the ship.

The thrust of the ship was never felt, but the Earth quickly became closer and closer. The ship broke through the atmosphere with ease and slowed its descent. It began to slowly cruise over the ocean.

"There! I see the Rig!" Anna called out.

"Landing gear engaged." Frag said.

When they got close, some warning lights of some kind came on.

"What's that?" Anna asked.

"They are shooting at us. It's no threat though. They may as well be using rubber band guns." Frag joked.

The ship stopped and floated a stone's throw away from the Rig.

"I've set the controls to stay here. Let's go make first contact." Frag continued to attempt joking.

The trio went out of the control room and walked down a hall until they reached an access hatch. They all went through and boosted over to the Rig, Frag in the mech's hand.

"Don't shoot! Friendlies!" Anna called through the mech's exterior speakers. Two humanoid mechs had guns trained on them. The werewolf mech landed and the cockpit opened to reveal Anna.

"Anna?" Wrench and Stephanie's voices both replied.

EPILOGUE~

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Anna reunited with some friends and introduced some new ones. Wolf was reintroduced as Max. Frag was introduced as an enemy defector. The Protalife was kept secret since any information about him getting found out by the enemy could undermine his operations.

Anna, Max, and Frag all cooperated with the captains of the Rig and told them as much as they could about the enemy and the truth about the Simplified A.I. units. Frag insisted that a majority of the awoken A.I. units would return to Earth within the next decade. Not to destroy it, but to find memories of a past life. The result would likely be an army on the side of the humans. Most likely only a fraction of the armies that the Emperor controls, but it would mean a much better defense for Earth as a whole.

Max and Anna had long conversations after coming back to Earth. Max knew he could only do so much as a giant mech. His human body was gone. Though he loved Anna with all his heart, he pushed her away as a lover and went back to the name Wolf. Though he loved her with all his heart, he had no desire to see her rot while pining over a reanimated brain in the body of a metal giant. That's not to say that he wouldn't give up his existence to make sure she could live longer. He would stay her protector for as long as he existed.

Anna was devastated at Max's defiance of their original love. She had only just found him again and he rejected her. She didn't hate him for it. She still loved him. But, he was just different somehow. They still train together and work together as best friends.

Stephanie and Wrench discovered love over the next few years. The pilot to her mech. The mechanic to his. The day eventually came when Stephanie took over Wrench's mech. His sister had returned in the form of an enemy robot.

More and more robots with simplified A.I. units returned to Earth searching for anything that reminded them of their previous life.

A young boy was digging through the wreckage of his old house with hands that could flatten the whole thing. He discovered a blanket that brought back warm memories of his mother, holding him tight.

An African tribal chief returned to his secluded tribe in the body of a metal god. He was worshiped and for it, he helped his tribe thrive.

Two robots returned to the same house. Through talking, they realized that they had nearly the same memories. Though they looked older, two familiar boys approached the pair of A.I. units. It turned out that the boys were twins that played with another pair of twins that used to live in the same house that the robots came to visit. The units were twins and the boys were their old friends.

All over the Earth, stories of fond memories were re-discovered. The human race was devastated, but it lives on.

With the help of a rogue A.I., a special protocol that unlocks hidden potential, a fragment of one of the most intelligent digital beings in the universe, and a woman that never gave up, the Emperor may yet live to regret messing with Earth. This story has only scratched the surface of the conflict

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Twenty years after the Emperor's forces attacked Earth.

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Anna coughed a few times as she woke up freezing. A hiss was the telltale sign that her cryo-pod was opening.

"Good morning, My Moon." Wolf greeted her.

"We there yet?" Anna asked. Another hiss sounded off as Wrench's cryo-pod began to open next to hers.

"Just beyond the reach of their detection systems." A female voice responded. It was Wrench's sister, Ply, that had answered.

"Mornin, honey." Wrench said as he stood up and walked over to Anna, still rubbing his eyes. He leaned in for a kiss. Anna pushed his left cheek away.

"Other side of your pod..." Anna said grumpily. Wrench got a better look and realized his error. Stephanie was on the right side of his pod. He got out on the left side. His wife and the mother of his two children was glaring at him.

Anna stood up and started stretching at the front end of her cryo-pod. She turned around and looked up at Wolf. His massive feet were the only thing sticking out past the rear of the pod. The rest was embedded in the wall. Just like every mech and pilot combo within the walls of the AEA. The Anti-Emperor's-Ark. A battleship redesigned to fit the remaining citizens of Earth as well as a mech army specially designed to fight against the Emperor's forces.

Anna stretched her neck, looking to the right. A long row of cryo-pods on both sides of the wide hall had a mech looking over each one. She then stretched her neck in the opposite direction, witnessing the similarly lengthy hall with a nearly identical view. Multiple pilots were out and stretching just like Anna. Some were already making small talk. Others were searching for some kind of sustenance.

The intercom hummed on with a tiny scratch that could be heard throughout the ship. All of the pilots were out of their pods by now and the pods themselves retreated into their storage bays below.

"Good morning." Frag's voice echoed. "We are near the objective. Get whatever food and breaks you need out of the way. In one hour, the initial plan will be put into action."

The hour seemed to go by too fast. Pilots were already suited up and getting into their cockpits. Frag continued his explanation.

"To review, the ARK portion of the ship containing all the civilians will be left behind in camouflage on the backside of a large asteroid."

Two halves of the massive ship separated and the lower half seemed to disappear.

"The Anti-Emperor portion will fly into the enemy planet's atmosphere and land in the Emperor's square. Most units should already be on the ground and pushing toward the objective before the ship lands."

The ship rushed forward and began its descent into the enemy planet's atmosphere. Anna bounced in her seat a few times through the roughest portion of the ride. When it got smooth, that was when she pulled a lever on her control panel. Her mech got sucked backward and ejected out of the ship. The pannels of mecha rotated so that the next mech to be launched was now in the same spot Anna was a moment before. Wrench pulled a similar lever and he was the next one to be launched out of the ship.

Anna's boosters activated and the mech was able to keep up with the speed of the AE. Wrench ended up right behind her. It wasn't long before there was a squadron of fifty mech's on either side of the ship.

Frag spoke through the intercoms of each mech.

"The Emperor himself is likely not on the planet. We are simply making a show of force before we broadcast our victory over the Emperor's forces to the rest of his empire. The idea is to show the hopeless, that all hope is not lost. We will make enemies. We may make allies. But one thing is for sure. The Emperor will know we exist and that we are angry."

The mech army dove down into a large open area with some Emperor paraphernalia plastered and carved all around. Multiple guards were showing up out of random buildings nearby. The variety of races was so complex. Some were human height, some were mech height others potentially posed a threat to the AE ship itself. But now wasn't the time to be timid.

"Wolf. Activate Werewolf Protocol."

The AE ship activated thrusters and began to land. The nearby citizens of the Emperor's enslaved planet suddenly became frightened. Not because of the small invasion force.

No.

It was the howl.

Not from one mech, but from every single mech on the invasion force.

The Howls of the pack that would eventually be known throughout the Empire as,

The Werewolves.